The Fairfield Inn at 52-34 Van Dam St., set to become a shelter facility for homeless adult families.
Feb. 21, 2018 By Nathaly Pesantez
The Fairfield Inn by Marriott in Long Island City is set to become a shelter for adult families.
The hotel, located at 52-34 Van Dam St., will provide shelter for up to 154 homeless families, according to the Department of Homeless Services. The shelter is expected to open in March.
The agency notified the community board and elected officials of their plans on Feb. 13.
The shelter will be a high-quality transitional housing facility under de Blasio’s “Turning the Tide” initiative put forth early 2017 to tackle homelessness. Under the mayor’s plan, cluster sites through the city will be eliminated while multi-service facilities like these are set to open. For this shelter, priority will be given to families with roots in Community Board 2.
The Van Dam Street facility will be operated by Home/Life, a non-profit service provider. Programs like case management, housing placement assistance, health and mental health services, and employment counseling will be offered on site for residents. Other services include screenings and intervention for those with substance abuse disorders, and yoga and nutrition classes.
On-site security will be provided 24 hours a day, with two officers at the entrance to control building access and monitor security cameras. The DHS also installed 95 security cameras through the building and across the shelter grounds as an added measure.
“This high-quality facility will be the first of its kind in this community district, offering 154 adult families from Queens the opportunity to be sheltered in their home borough, closer to their support networks and communities they called home as they get back on their feet,” said Isaac McGinn, press secretary for the DHS.
Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Long Island City) said the upcoming facility under the mayor’s plan is just another hotel being re-purposed as a shelter.
“It’s important that the city provide individuals and families who are experiencing homelessness with shelter and resources, ensuring opportunities for them to find work and permanent, affordable housing,” said Van Bramer. “However, DHS has been reckless in their use of commercial hotels as temporary shelters throughout Queens and especially in this district.”
He added: “The Mayor’s Turning the Tide plan on getting out of hotels as shelters and bringing balance to each community board is simply not working….the Mayor and the Department of Homeless Services are failing us here.”
The DHS is currently using three commercial hotels within CB2 to provide shelter to nearly 530 New Yorkers. The locations include the City View Inn, housing single men since last month, the Best Western housing families, and the Quality Inn on Queens Boulevard.
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21 Comments
Feb 27, 2018
Sunnyside LIC Post: Want to win a Pulitzer prize for Investigative Reporting and bring down our corrupt Mayor, then report on the connection between the Brooklyn power brokers who raised $10 Million dollars for DiBlasio’s campaign, the Hotels Owners and their LLC’s and the not-for-profits who manage the hotel homeless shelters providing services at inflated prices and how they are all interconnected and it all leads back to the Mayor and his relationship which started back when he was a councilman. Using homeless people to enrich themselves and fleecing NYC Taxpayers to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
I think this is excellent work on the part of the Mayor. I think he has inherited a major problem and is working very hard to solve it. Until permanent solutions are in place, such as Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi’s Home Stability Support Plan which has been delayed again by Governor Cuomo, I commend the Mayor for getting people off the streets. I also commend Governor Cuomo for putting into place the first supportive housing in NYC. Ideally supportive housing and Hevesi’s plan could both go forward and work hand-in-hand, which would do much to solve homelessness. People are dying in the streets of Sunnyside and Woodside and re-purposing a hotel to shelter them is great, in my opinion. I’m thrilled to have the men sheltered in “my own backyard” in Maspeth at the Holiday Inn Express. I just wish more were being sheltered where I live. I hope the CB2 District can begin to look at this issue with more heart AND with more logic, and begin to see the homeless as individuals who need our help. If you don’t have the solutions, and you aren’t working towards solutions, it doesn’t help much to complain. It’s better for the politicians to work together on solutions so that the community doesn’t have to suffer for lack of maturity on their part. The politicians ought to have the community’s needs in mind. And the homeless are our neighbors too. I commend Jimmy Van Bramer for his Girl Scout Troop 6000. But I think we’ll go further to help people together, than divided–and no person has done more (that I know of) for the homeless and poor in recent years in NYC than Mayor Bill de Blasio. Of course, more needs to be done and he admits that, but I am VERY grateful for what he has done so far. The majority of NYers are in poverty, so the majority of voters and constituents are poor. Politicians would be wise to bear that in mind. Those 3% of NYers that are rich are also only 3% of the votes.
Crystal you are correct, a great deal of New Yorker’s are poor and many of us are struggling and have worked hard to maintain what we have, we have invested in our neighborhoods, planted roots here, kept our homes in good shape and created stable working class neighborhoods just to see them be ruined by this Mayor. This is why many of us who are workers/middle class and employed are looking to move out, sell our homes to investors and absentee landlords because the writing is on the wall as this is the direction our city has taken thanks to our Mayor. Homeless people from all over the country are pouring in because they know NYC will house them in crappy hotels and provide public assistance. He has chosen them over us. Jimmy Van Bramer has chosen them over us. Our public schools are in tatters with reading and writing way below national averages will this attract working/middle class families to NYC and keep them here? No way will it keep them here. The quality of life in NYC stinks, just ride the E train (the Homeless Express) in the morning. The way these Homeless programs are managed is wasting hundreds of millions of dollars per year – they live for free in these hotels – did you know our new neighbors will be getting free Yoga classes, nutrition and drug counseling at this hotel? Nice touch and amenities. The only benefit is for the not-for-profits and the hotel owners, the friends of the Mayor, who are enriching themselves on the backs of New York City Tax Payers. Today Homeless Hotel Shelters — tomorrow permanent Community Homeless Shelters, in a few years community jails in your back yard with the shut down of Riker’s Island looming on the horizon.
Callahan v. Carey and the Legal Right to Shelter
The landmark case in the 1979 lawsuit Callahan v. Carey ensured the right to shelter for homeless men, women, children, and families in New York City. This case must be challenged.. It’s weak and reckless law. If you can’t afford to live here you need to move to a place you can afford. Many of our friends relatives and neighbors had to face this reality, they didn’t demand the city put them up on the public dime. They moved and thrived, not the end of the world.
Are you for real? Do you believe in unicorns also ?
Where do you live? So far we have 3 shelters here between LIC and Jackson Hgts. Crime had gone up. I have never seen it like this in the past 26 yrs. And you sound so dramatic when you say people are dying in the streets here in woodside and sunnyside?? REALLY? Put homeless somewhere else. Not in middle class areas where we have worked so hard to get what we have and want our children to be safe and not exposed to SOME of those homeless who may have substance abuse and criminal records..who will interact in our family community!
Ppl actually thumbs down a comment from someone simply stating they pray for less fortunate and Thank God for their blessings. Wow, what has my hometown turned into?
Grow up, the respondents are fed up with city government corruption under the guise of beneficence destroying their neighborhood.
Sunnyside LIC Post: Want to win a Pulitzer prize for Investigative Reporting and bring down our corrupt Mayor, then report on the connection between the Brooklyn power brokers who raised $10 Million dollars for DiBlasio’s campaign, the Hotels Owners and their LLC’s and the not-for-profits who manage the hotel homeless shelters providing services at inflated prices and how they are all interconnected and it all leads back to the Mayor and his relationship which started back when he was a councilman. Using homeless people to enrich themselves and fleecing NYC Taxpayers to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Property taxes on one and two family homes are out of control in Woodside and Sunnyside! Owners have to pass on these increases to renters. Wonder why rent is on the rise? We are paying for the homeless! Unbelievable!
How can we stop this? I am a nearby business owner who gets a significant amount of my business from guests staying at the hotel! Its a disgrace to the community. We already have 5 other shelters within walking distance. The city is forgetting all of the local businesses and residents that are now being affected by this. It’s outrageous, someone has to put a stop to this!
Erika- Whether you want to believe it or not, your fellow business owner sold you out. We need to find out the LLC who owns this property and set up picket lines in front of their homes just like we did back in the 1980’s.
Here’s info on the owner: http://lamgroupnyc.com/portfolio_fortis/fairfield-inn-new-york-long-island-city-manhattan-view/
Invest in a building, any building and call it a hotel and the D’Blassio administration will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.
Another homeless hotel at the cost of $5,000 per room per month for free for these homeless families on the backs of New York Tax Payers. This is the biggest waste of taxpayer money in the history of NYC. A select powerful group owns the hotels under LLC’s, then they have a not-for-profit operate the shelter for DHS — like this one Home/Life founded in 1995 — charging DHS for room rental, outreach, security and other services at inflated rates. The couple who founded this organization Home/Life also operate other homeless shelters in the Bronx “Star Bright Family Residences” and others throughout the city. There is collusion between the owners of the hotels, the Not-For Profits owners and the Mayor. The dots must be connected back to the Mayor and contributions to his treasure chest. There is a web of corruption with ties to power brokers, a syndicate in Brooklyn who control the shelter system in NYC. They raised over $10 million dollars for DiBlasio’s run for mayor. You must follow the money to understand this. Jimmy Van Bramer should put some distance between himself and Mayor DiBlasio and stand up for our community.
Mr. JVB will never distance himself — and he does not stand up for his community at all and that is a fact — he is too busy going back and forth to Puerto Rico —
I agree, there is a great deal of corruption in this scenario. The hotel room is $125 per night, but homeless shelter they are getting $700 per night. The taxpayers are being ripped off, and politicians are pocketing the difference. Where is the oversight? We need an investigation.
Withheld
February 22nd, 2018
If you follow the money and check who the founders of these not-for-profits are, where they originated and who their accountants (CPA’s) are, and who the (CPA’S) are for the Best Western/Verve, Marriot Fairmont, La Quinta Inn and other Homeless Hotel’s and who owns the hotels, and check the LLC’s under which they operate, and who their attorneys are and then follow the former DHS officials who are now employed as executive directors & CEO’s of these not-for profits who facilitate the procurement of these contracts with DHS, it will all lead you to the promised land of Boro Park and Williamsburg and back to Mayor DiBlasio. There is no interest in providing affordable housing and creating real housing for working class families, there’s no money in it.
Great to see a holistic, biopsychosocial care plan. I hope they follow through with all the services necessary to lift these families out of extreme poverty
I pray for the homeless. May the Lord help them get back on their feet. Thankful I have a home to lay my head at night. God Bless
God bless us, every one!